Imaad Hajat, chairperson of the Sandhurst Community Association, said water was a constant issue in her community, to the point where she had to buy a Jojo tank.
Hajat said they have been experiencing water challenges for over two months now. “Our pipes need to be changed because every two days, [they] leak. We are still using the copper water lines but now they are replacing them with plastic ones, and every time they leak, they cut them and put plastic [ones] … then two days later the next area has no water,” she said.
Hajat also said the new mayor should prioritise streetlights, which she said have not been working for years. “I have been in this area for at least five years, and I don’t know the streetlights to ever have worked. In the evening it is pitch dark and it poses a security risk.”
Two months after Gwamanda’s election as mayor in July last year, an explosion rocked Lillian Ngoyi Street (formerly Bree Street), leaving one person dead and 48 others injured.
The explosion was believed to have been caused by methane gas under the city’s major arterial route.
In the same month, GCR Ratings, an affiliate of Moody’s Investors Service, downgraded Joburg’s credit rating and revised its outlook from stable to negative, highlighting cash flow challenges in SA’s economic and financial hub.
This weakened Joburg’s ability to pay back its loans, which also contributed to the higher cost of borrowing for the cash-strapped metro.
A month later in August, a fire broke out a Usindiso, a hijacked building in Marshalltown in the Joburg CBD, and 76 people died.
The disasters became a defining feature of Gwamanda’s days in office. He became the city’s eighth mayor, succeeding his fellow Al Jama-ah councillor Thapelo Amad, who also had a short stint as Joburg’s number one citizen.
Public policy specialist at the Wits School of Governance, Dr Kagiso Pooe, said Gwamanda was “not equipped” for the position, and the people who enabled him to be the mayor should be blamed for challenges the city faces, which include service delivery and poor finances.
Pooe said for business people, the impact of changing mayors regularly has been hard and getting business buy-in had been slow.
In March, many parts of Joburg experienced water challenges when lightning hit the Eikenhof pump station, which supplies water to most parts of Joburg. Residents endured dry taps for weeks, leading to growing discontent about the city’s failure to deliver services.
Jeanette Chabalala
www.sowetanlive.co.za
